What Are the Symptoms of AIDS and What to Expect

We all heard a lot of things about AIDS, but what are the symptoms of AIDS? These are actually caused by the deterioration of the immune system and the decrease of the number of the CD 4+ T cells.

These are considered to be the most important when it comes to the infection fighters of the immune system. In the moment when HIV enters the body, it starts destroying these cells.

What are the symptoms of AIDS?

There are some common AIDS symptoms such as diarrhea that lasts for more than a week, memory loss, neurological disorders, depression, fatigue that is profound and unexplained, recurring fever and sweating during the night, swollen lymph glands in the armpit, neck or groin, dry cough, pneumonia, fast weight loss, blotches of red, pink, brown or purplish color under the skin or in the nose, mouth or eyelids, and white spots or unusual blemishes on the tongue, in the throat or in the mouth.

Infections associated with AIDS symptoms

Since people who have AIDS have a weakened immune system, it is more likely for them to contact infections, known as opportunistic infections. These are caused by those organisms that usually don’t causes disease to people with a healthy immune system, but they do affect people with a damaged immune system.

As it has been mentioned before, the symptoms of AIDS are caused by the decrease of the CD4+ T cells.

The opportunistic infections offer a different set of AIDS symptoms, including coma, difficulty and pain when swallowing, fever, nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, severe and long lasting diarrhea, vision loss, coughing, shortness of breath, extreme fatigue, mental symptoms, including forgetfulness and confusion, seizures, lack of coordination, severe headaches, and also weight loss.

What are the symptoms of AIDS regarding the opportunistic infections?

There are numerous opportunistic infections that we have to keep in mind and some of them affect the brain, such as cryptoccoccal meningitis. This is caused by a yeast-like fungus that usually affects the brain and the lungs, but it might show symptoms in almost any body part. The fungus causing these kinds of AIDS symptoms can be found in the soil all over the world. Usually it can be found in the soil contaminated by bird droppings.

HIV-related encephalopathy refers to a disease that alters the brain function or structure and so causing problems with the cognitive function, memory and mental processes. These kinds of symptoms usually appear when the CD4+ T cell count falls below 50.

When thinking about what are the symptoms of AIDS we also have to take into consideration progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, also known as PML. This is a quite rare disorder of the nervous system and it is caused by human polyomavirus. As a result the myelin sheath covering the nerve cells is destroyed. The symptoms include mental deterioration, speech disturbances, vision loss and the inability to coordinate movements.

It is very important to know what are the symptoms of AIDS that are the most common and how to recognize them for information in this case can be a life saver.

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